The Democrats Have Become a Cruel and Cynical Party
Thankfully, the longest government shutdown in history should soon end. After more than a dozen votes to re-open the government, Senate Democrats choreographed the end of their obstruction.
Thankfully, the longest government shutdown in history should soon end. After more than a dozen votes to re-open the government, Senate Democrats choreographed the end of their obstruction.
Don’t be fooled. This was not the Democrats seeing reason or choosing to compromise. They deliberately kept the government shutdown through the off-year elections to keep their base engaged. It was cruel and cynical.
Their extended shutdown meant more pain for government workers who were working without pay, more problems for millions of Americans on the SNAP food program, more difficulties for the air traffic control system and millions of Americans traveling.
Make no mistake: Americans’ lives were made more difficult because the Democrats refused to pass the House’s clean budget resolution for more than a month – and this was their plan all along.
House Republicans first passed the clean budget resolution to keep the government open on Sept. 19. This gave the Senate 11 days to pass the same bill and continue negotiating over temporary COVID-era health care subsides while the government was working. They intentionally wasted those days specifically to create this mess.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his members thought they could use shutting the government as leverage for the November elections. They achieved no policy objectives for their obstruction. This was about the election. This needlessly destructive plot went on for 59 days – after the House Republicans did their jobs and passed a clean bill with no policy changes. The Democrats chose to hold the country hostage.
Don’t take my word for it. Schumer was delighted to publicly admit the Democrats’ strategy. A week into the shutdown, he told Punchbowl News on Oct. 8: “Every day gets better for us, It’s because we’ve thought about this long in advance and we knew that health care would be the focal point on Sept. 30 and we prepared for it … Their whole theory was — threaten us, bamboozle us, and we would submit in a day or two.”
It was simply cynical and cruel. I was reminded of a breakfast I had in early 2004 with then-Senator Zell Miller from Georgia.
I had known Zell since 1964 when he was a young state senator running for Congress. I was an even younger congressional campaign manager in the same district. He had been lieutenant governor, governor, and then a senator.
In Georgia, Miller was clearly the most popular political leader of his generation. He was a native of the North Georgia mountains and did not fit in with the national party. He was a conservative, small town, traditional, pro-Defense Democrat. He often said his experience in the Marine Corps shaped his life. As he wrote it in his book “Corps Values: Everything you Need to Know I Learned in the Marines:”
“In the twelve weeks of hell and transformation that were Marine Corps boot camp, I learned the values of achieving a successful life that have guided and sustained me on the course which, although sometimes checkered and detoured, I have followed ever since.”
Despite his more conservative stances, he was deeply popular. Senator Miller was asked to give the keynote address to the 1992 Democrat National Convention in which he nominated Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton for president.
One of Miller’s consultants in the 1990 gubernatorial race was James Carville, who famously invented Clinton’s successful1992 campaign themes: “Change vs. more of the same.” “It’s the economy, stupid,” and “Don’t forget health care.”
By 2000, Miller recognized the Clinton wing of his party was starting to be eclipsed by the far more liberal and cynical left.
After four years in the Senate, Miller felt totally isolated from his own party.
I went to his office for breakfast one morning, and he told me he owed me an apology. I was astounded and asked why. He told me when he was governor, I often made speeches in Georgia about how bad Washington Democrats were. He admitted he thought I was just being a partisan and told me, “Now that I have been here four years, I have to confess it is worse than you described.”
Senator Miller reached a breaking point in 2002 when the Democratic senators fought intensely to unionize the Transportation Security Administration right up until election day. The next day, they quit talking about it. As a former Marine, Miller thought pretending to care about a national security issue for purely political reasons was a violation of their duty and patriotism (the Democrats simply wanted the unions to be enthusiastic for the Democrats in the off-year election).
Still, Miller did not abandon the Democratic Party. It had been his electoral home for a lifetime. But he did speak at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York which nominated President George W. Bush for a second term.
The cynicism and cruelty of the modern leftwing Democratic Party have powerful human costs.
They must support the teachers unions – no matter how many childrens’ lives are destroyed (see Chris Papst’s brilliant book “Failure Factory”).
The modern Democrats must undermine the police, oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and defend criminals (illegal immigrants and otherwise) no matter what it costs innocent citizens.
In close elections, Democrats simply must lie about their voting records and beliefs (see the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial campaigns as case studies in leftwing politicians pretending to be centrists).
Senator Miller would sadly recognize the cynicism and cruelty of the modern Democratic Party. And I suspect he would say it has steadily gotten worse.
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